Hard Asset

by Pamela Clare

  To save Connor’s life, yes, she could.

  Connor’s head felt like it had been split in two, pain throbbing inside his skull. He opened his eyes, saw red.

  Blood.

  Where the hell was he?

  He was about to raise a hand to wipe his eyes when someone squeezed his fingers.

  He blinked.

  Shanti?

  She shook her head, pressed a finger to her lips, then pointed.

  Two men sat in the front of the helicopter, but he didn’t recognize them.

  The helicopter.

  They had arrived at the airport, and he’d escorted Shanti on board. Then one of the bastards had drawn a weapon and… nothing.

  He’d been shot, and the helicopter had been hijacked.

  He didn’t have to wonder where the bullet had struck him. He seemed to have all of his bodily functions, so the round must not have penetrated. It had grazed his temple, knocking him clean out and making him bleed like a stuck pig.

  Shanti mouthed words to him. They think you’re dead.

  They were in for a nasty surprise.

  How long?

  She held up one finger. About an hour.

  Where are we?

  She pointed down. Myanmar.

  Fuck.

  Then Shanti showed him something he hadn’t expected to see. She was sitting on his Glock.

  His heart gave a thud.

  Damn. He was in love now.

  How had she managed that? How had the woman who was afraid of firearms found the courage to recover and hide one under the noses of two armed assholes?

  He pointed to his right side. I have another one.

  Amber eyes went wide, her lips forming a surprised “Oh!”

  She pointed up. Drone.

  So, the drone was following them. Had Cruz and Jones been hit?

  Connor had no way of knowing. His radio was gone.

  They killed the pilots.

  Ah, shit.

  Connor hadn’t known John Hatch or Robert Davis well, but Hatch had come from the Coast Guard with the reputation of being a kickass chopper pilot. Corbray and Tower would take this hard. Cobra had never suffered a fatality before.

  He closed his eyes, took stock of his situation. He was flying over Myanmar with two unknown assailants who had just killed two operators, stolen Cobra’s helicopter, and kidnapped him and his client. He had two pistols, limited flying skills, no backup, and no idea how his body would react if he got to his feet and needed to fight.

  It sucks to be you.

  He had only two things going for him—he was armed, and their captors thought he was dead.

  He willed his aching head to think. He could neutralize the co-pilot now, put a gun to the pilot’s head, and order him to turn it back to Bangladesh. The fact that the Myanmar Air Force hadn’t shot them out of the sky meant that the pilot was probably in touch with someone on the ground. If the hostiles on the ground lost contact with the pilot, they might scramble and shoot the bird out of the sky.

  If the pilot didn’t cooperate, Connor would have no choice but to get rid of him and try to fly this chopper himself.

  The other option—waiting until they landed to make a break—wasn’t viable. He’d bet his ass they were headed to some kind of military facility. Then he’d be facing dozens if not hundreds more armed hostiles. It had taken one shot to knock him out. It would take one to kill him—or Shanti.

  And if they got ahold of Shanti…

  Women’s screams from those videos echoed through his mind.

  He wouldn’t let them touch her.

  How the hell had this happened?

  That’s not your problem.

  His problem was getting Shanti—and that damned phone—to safety.

  There was only one survivable course of action. They were getting farther away from Bangladesh and safety with every passing second and closer to wherever that bastard Naing wanted Shanti to be.

  He opened his eyes, slipped a hand inside his shirt, slowly withdrew the second Glock. He carried anti-personnel rounds in his handguns, rounds designed not to over-penetrate, so there was little chance of damaging the flight controls or having a round ricochet and hit Shanti.

  She watched him, wide-eyed, as he pressed the pistol into the back of the co-pilot’s seat—and fired.

  BAM! BAM!

  Shanti flinched and covered her ears at the blast, saw the co-pilot slump forward.

  In a heartbeat, Connor threw off his safety belt, pressed his gun against the side of the pilot’s face, and yanked something out of the control console—the interface cable to the pilot’s helmet. “Turn this bird around and fly us back to Bangladesh—now.”

  The rage on his bloodied face made her pulse skip. This was the military part of him, the part that had fought and killed, the part that risked his life in war but had trouble coming home.

  The pilot laughed and kept flying deeper into Myanmar.

  “Turn it around, fucker, or I’ll blow your brains out!”

  “Who will fly the helicopter if I’m dead? You? That girl?”

  “I’ll fly it. I’m a former special forces operator and spent years flying these things. If you want me to blow your head off, fine. I was giving you a chance to live.”

  This time the pilot did as Connor asked, turning the helicopter around.

  Shanti exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “How did they flip you?” Connor sat back but kept the gun pointed at the pilot’s head. “Money? It’s always money.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “No, thanks. Traitors aren’t my type.” Connor sagged against the back of the co-pilot’s seat but kept the gun still pointed at the pilot’s head.

  He must have been in pain or dizzy or both.

  Had the pilot noticed?

  Connor gritted his teeth, sat up straight again.

  She needed to help him somehow. “Do you want some water? An Advil?”

  He shook his head, his gaze fixed on the pilot. “How far to the river?”

  “About two hundred fifty kilometers—if we don’t run out of fuel.”

  Shanti’s heart gave a hard knock. “Run out of fuel?”

  Connor grinned. “Nice try, asshole. I can see the fuel gauge from here. They filled the tank in Cox’s Bazar.”

  Oh, thank God.

  Shanti looked out her window on an undulating sea of green below—hilly monsoon forest dotted with little villages. It seemed so peaceful, and yet—

  BAM! BAM!

  Shattered glass.

  The pilot slumped forward, and helicopter lunged downward and rolled onto its side, leaving Shanti’s stomach behind.

  “He drew a pistol. I didn’t have a choice.” Connor somehow managed to climb into the front and unbuckled the pilot. “Help me move him!”

  But Shanti couldn’t seem to find her feet, the helicopter spinning beneath her, disorienting her, making her dizzy. She unbuckled her safety belt and grabbed the pilot by his arm, pulling with all her might until he fell onto the floor near her feet, a hole in the side of his head, lifeless eyes staring up at her.

  “Oh, God.”

  An alarm beeped.

  Connor sat in the pilot’s seat. “Buckle in! This might get a little rough.”

  She did as he said, reminding herself that he’d spent years flying helicopters. He knew how to handle this.

  Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay.

  “Hang on!”

  The forest rushed up at them, what she’d thought were rolling hills looking more like mountains now and looming right in front of them.

  The skids hit treetops, and then the world spun out of control.

  “We’re going down!”

  “What?”

  “Hold onto something!”

  They hit the ground hard, the force of impact knocking the breath from Shanti’s lungs. Stunned, she sat there, one thought going through her mind.

  She was alive.
r />   “Are you okay?”

  She sucked in a painful breath. “Yes.”

  “They probably saw where we went down. We’ll strip what we need from this bird and get out of here.” He climbed into the back seat, unbuckled her safety belt.

  Stunned, she sat there for a moment.

  “Come on, Shanti. On your feet.” He opened the door on her side, climbed over her, and stepped down.

  She picked up his pistol from the floor of the helicopter where it had fallen during the chaos and handed it to him.

  “Thanks.” He helped her to the ground, blood on his right cheek and temple and in his hair. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Her legs felt like jelly. “Just shaken up, I think. How about you?”

  He stepped back, looked at the chopper. “I’m good, but this bird is beat. I hope they don’t take it out of my paycheck.”

  The helicopter’s skids were bent, its tail rotors crumpled, its boom buckled. She didn’t have to be an expert on helicopters to know it wouldn’t fly again.

  He climbed back inside, searched the corpses, then hopped to the ground, the dead men’s weapons in his hands. “That’s my first helicopter crash as a pilot, and, as chopper crashes go, it wasn’t bad.”

  “Your first crash?”

  He tucked the pistols inside his waistband. “I’ve only spent about three hours flying helicopters and never on my own.”

  “What?” Shanti gaped at him. “You told him you’d flown helicopters for years.”

  “That’s called ‘bluffing.’”

  Shanti’s legs gave out, landing her flat on her butt.

  Connor saw Shanti drop to the grass. “Hey, you okay?”

  “You said you knew how to fly one of these! That whole time, I kept telling myself it would be okay because you knew what you were doing.”

  Head throbbing, he walked over to her, took her hands, pulled her to her feet. “I got us safely down, didn’t I?”

  She laughed, a manic kind of laughter.

  He couldn’t blame her for being upset.

  He kept hold of her hands, looked into her eyes. “This is about survival now, Shanti. I know this must have been terrifying but—

  “Terrifying?” Her expression turned to rage. “I thought you were dead! I thought they had killed you! There was so much blood and…”

  Warmth blossomed behind Connor’s breastbone, some part of him touched to think she’d been afraid for his sake.

  He drew her into his arms. “I’m okay, Shanti, thanks in part to you. I’m sorry you went through that. This should never have happened.”

  But Shanti wasn’t finished, words burbling out of her. “I kept remembering what you’d said about making peace with death. I didn’t know how to do that. But when I saw you were alive, I thought you might moan or move and then they’d shoot you again. I squeezed your hand, tried to wake you, to warn you.”

  “It worked.” He stepped back, hands on her shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “I saw you’d dropped your gun, so I pulled it across the floor with my foot and waited until they were distracted to pick it up. I told myself that I would pull the trigger to save your life if I had to. I was going to kill them.”

  That was a huge step for a woman who’d grown up terrified of firearms and who had committed herself to nonviolence.

  “That was incredibly brave.”

  “I don’t feel brave.”

  He released her, tucked a finger under her chin, lifted her gaze to his. “Being brave just means doing what you have to do, even when you’re afraid.”

  “Have you ever been afraid?”

  “More times than I can count.” That seemed to surprise her. “You are strong, Shanti. I know you are. You need that strength now. There are two hundred fifty kilometers between us and the border. Soldiers will be trying to find us. They’ll have helicopters, vehicles, and maybe even dogs—and we’ll be on foot.”

  “Won’t Cobra or the US government send a rescue team?”

  “They’d have to get permission from the Pentagon for an op like that. Myanmar won’t allow it. Your abduction will already be an international incident.”

  “They’ll say I was spying.”

  That wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  “Shields and the others know right where we are, and I’ve got an encrypted satellite phone in my backpack. But for now, it’s up to us to save ourselves. I’ll call them once we’re away from here. Our priorities at this moment are survival, evasion, and escape. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, but he was pretty sure she didn’t get the big picture. How could she? She had no military training. Nothing in her life as an attorney and the daughter of wealthy academics could have prepared her for this.

  He’d gotten them out of one hot mess and landed them straight in another.

  “We need to get away from this crash site as soon as possible. There are probably choppers on the way to our position right now. Turn off the encrypted cell phone we gave you. We don’t want Naing getting a ping on our location.”

  “I thought you said you could still track a phone even when it’s off.”

  “That’s using the IEMI number. No one outside of Cobra has that information for these phones. But any cell tower or stinger set-up can get a ping off a phone that’s turned on. Shields will still be able to follow us. We take what we need from the helicopter and get moving.”

  She seemed to get ahold of herself, fishing the phone out of her handbag and shutting it down. “What can I do?”

  He climbed up on the crumpled boom, opened the baggage compartment, and tossed down a first aid kit and Hatch and Davis’ luggage. “Search their bags. Put anything that might help us survive in your handbag, but remember, you’ll be carrying it all the way to the border.”

  With that to keep her busy, he climbed back into the bird, opened the rear storage compartment, and took out what they needed. A backpack with a first aid kit and a jungle survival kit. Emergency rations and water. A K-Bar knife rig for his ankle. An M4 rifle with a BE Meyers MAWL infrared laser scope and six loaded thirty-round magazines. Extra ammo for the rifle and for his Glocks.

  After that, he checked the corpses again. One had a lighter in his pocket that might come in handy. Both had water and energy bars. He stripped both men of their IDs so that Shields could have a go at them. He located his radio near the co-pilot’s feet, but it was smashed, useless. Well, they were out of range anyway.

  He jumped down, found Shanti sorting through the contents of Hatch and Davis’ bags, tears on her face. He should have known that would be a hard job for her.

  “This one had a photo of his wife and kids.” She slid it into her handbag. “His malaria pills are here, too. Mine were in my luggage, which never made it on board. I hope there’s enough for us both.”

  “Good call. If he’s got rain gear, bring that, too. Can I have one of those Advil?”

  She dug around in her massive handbag, opened a small bottle, put a yellow pill in his hand. “Your head hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He popped the pill, took a drink. “When Naing’s men come down on us, and they will, they’re going to try to kill me to get to you. They’ll try to take you alive. He wants to know what you know and—”

  From behind him came a strange, low grunt.

  Crunch!

  The helicopter shuddered.

  He turned, dropped to one knee, weapon raised, to see a massive black bull with curved horns. The animal was pissed off, its body rippling with muscle.

  “It’s a wild gaur,” Shanti said softly. “He must think the helicopter is an intruder. My father told me they’re not usually aggressive toward people.”

  The enormous animal didn’t seem to notice them but rammed the nose of the chopper once more.

  Crunch!

  “Shit.” Connor lowered his weapon, shouldered the backpack, and checked the M4. “Let’s get out of here. Leave the phone.”

  11

 
Shanti repeated what he’d said, sure she’d misunderstood. “Leave the phone?”

  “As long as we’ve got it, they’re going to be able to find us. Keep the encrypted cell you got from Cobra. Shields can use it to ping your location.”

  She unzipped an inner pocket in her bulging handbag, drew out the soldier’s phone. “Bram told me to hold onto this.”

  “Bram didn’t know you were going to be abducted and crash in the jungle. This is about our survival now. Better an angry boss than ending up dead.”

  Shanti dropped the phone. “I’m ready.”

  Behind them, the guar bellowed again.

  Crunch!

  Connor checked the compass from the survival kit and pointed northwest. “The pilot took us about a hundred fifty miles inland, heading southeast. Bangladesh is roughly a seven-day walk in that direction.”

  Seven days?

  Shanti followed him, glad she’d worn pants and boots and not a skirt and heels. Then she remembered all the things her father had told her about the monsoon forests. Her gaze jerked to the forest floor, looking for any sign of snakes.

  Connor looked back at her. “You walking on eggshells? We need to go faster.”

  “There are so many poisonous snakes here—cobras, kraits, vipers on the ground, vipers in the trees. There are tarantulas, too.”

  “I would worry about the creepy things that carry guns, not the ones with fangs. Just watch where you step. We need to put a lot of miles between us and the crash site before nightfall. This area will be crawling with soldiers soon.”

  Rifle in his hands, he set a brisk pace, leading Shanti uphill and down, through muddy gullies and over streams. She did her best not to slow him, sweat pouring down her face, gibbons and other monkeys chattering in the trees around them, the air thick, humid, and buzzing with insects. She was grateful for the bug repellent she’d brought with her—and for every hour she’d spent on the elliptical trainer at the gym. Still, her thighs burned, her lungs hurting for breath as they made their way through underbrush and up a steep hillside.

  Connor stopped, cocked his head as if listening. “Hear that?”

  “Monkeys?” She tried to catch her breath.

  “Choppers, flying in from the south, heading to the crash site. Keep moving.”